Asuper-maximum security (supermax) oradministrative maximum (ADX)prison is a "control-unit" prison, or a unit within prisons, which represents the mostsecure level of custody in the prison systems of certain countries.
The objective is to provide long-term, segregated housing for inmates classified as the highest security risks in the prison system and those who pose an extremely serious threat to bothnational andglobal security.[1]
According to theNational Institute of Corrections, an agency of theUnited States government, "a supermax is a stand-alone unit or part of another facility and is designated for violent or disruptive incarcerated individuals. It typically involves up to 23-hour-per-day solitary confinement for an indefinite period of time. Those incarcerated in supermax housing have minimal contact with staff and other inmates", a definition confirmed by a majority ofprison wardens.[1]
In 2001, academicsLeena Kurki andNorval Morris wrote that there was no universal, agreed upon definition for "supermax" and that prisons are classified inconsistently. They identified four general features of supermax prisons:[2]
Long-term: once transferred to a supermax prison, incarcerated individuals tend to stay there for several years or indefinitely.
Powerful administration: the supermax staff have ample authority to punish and manage incarcerated individuals, without outside review or prisoner grievance systems.
Solitary confinement: supermax prisons rely heavily on intensive (and long-term) solitary confinement, which is used to isolate and punish prisoners as well as to protect them from themselves and each other. Communication with outsiders is minimal to none.
Before the Trump administration ordered former federal death row inmates to supermax prisons, those who were in a supermax prison were placed not as a punishment of their crimes but by their previous history when incarcerated or based on reliable evidence of an impending disruption, such as agang leader or the leader of a radical movement. These decisions are made as administrative protection measures and the prisoners in a supermax are deemed by correctional workers as a threat to the safety and security of the institution itself.[2]
The amount of programming for those in prison varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Certain jurisdictions provide entertainment for their incarcerated population in the form of television, educational and self-help programs. Others provide instructors who speak through the cell door to individuals who are incarcerated. Some jurisdictions provide no programming to its incarcerated population.[2] In a supermax, incarcerated people are generally allowed out of their cells for only one hour a day (one-and-a-half hours inCalifornia state prisons). Exercise is done in indoor spaces or small, secure, outdoor spaces, usually alone or in a pair and always watched by correctional officers. Group exercise is offered only to those who are in transition programs.
Prisoners receive their meals through ports in the doors of their cells.[3]
People in these prisons are under constantsurveillance, usually withCCTV cameras. Cell doors are usually opaque, while the cells may be windowless. Furnishings are plain, with poured concrete or metal furniture. Cell walls, and sometimes plumbing, may be soundproofed to prevent communication between people.[3]
Supermax and Security Housing Unit (SHU) prisons are controversial. One criticism is that the living conditions in such facilities violate theUnited States Constitution, specifically, theEighth Amendment's proscription against "cruel and unusual" punishments.[4] A 2011New York Bar Association comprehensive study suggested that supermax prisons constitute "torture under international law" and "cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution".[5] In 2012, a federal class action suit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons and officials who run ADX Florence SHU (Bacote v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, Civil Action 1:12-cv-01570) alleged chronic abuse, failure to properlydiagnose prisoners, and neglect of prisoners who are seriouslymentally ill.[6]
An early form of supermax-style prison unit appeared inAustralia in 1975, when "Katingal" was built inside theLong Bay Correctional Centre inSydney. Dubbed the "electronic zoo" by inmates, Katingal was a super-maximum security prison block with 40 prison cells having electronically operated doors, surveillance cameras, and no windows. It was closed down two years later overhuman rights concerns.[7] Since then, some maximum-security prisons have gone to full lockdown as well, while others have been built and dedicated to the supermax standard. In September 2001, the Australian state ofNew South Wales opened a facility in theGoulburn Correctional Centre to the supermax standard. While its condition is an improvement over that of Katingal of the 1970s, this new facility is nonetheless designed on the same principle of sensory deprivation.[8][9] It has been set up for 'AA' prisoners who have been deemed a risk to public safety and the instruments of government and civil order or are believed to be beyond rehabilitation.Corrections Victoria in the state ofVictoria also operates the Acacia and Melaleuca units atBarwon Prison which serve to hold the prisoners requiring the highest security in that state includingMelbourneGangland figures such asTony Mokbel, andCarl Williams, who was murdered in the Acacia unit in 2010.
In 1985, the state government of São Paulo created an annex to a psychiatric penitentiary hospital meant to house the most violent inmates of the region and established thePenitentiary of Rehabilitation Center of Taubaté, also known as Piranhão. Previously, high-risk inmates were housed at a prison on Anchieta Island; however, that closed down after a bloody massacre. At Taubaté, inmates spent 23 hours each day in solitary confinement and 30 minutes each day with a small group of seven to ten inmates. Ill-treatment of inmates occurred on a daily basis, causing major psychological impairment.[10]
Throughout the 1990s, and the early-2000s, Brazil faced major challenges with gang structures within its prisons. The gangPrimeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) gained notoriety in the prison system and had new members joining within the prisons. Riots were a common occurrence and the gang culture became uncontrollable, leading authorities to pass the controversial Regime Disciplinar Diferenciado (RDD), a culture founded from disciplinary punishment.[11]
Stammheim Prison, inStuttgart, opened as a supermax-style prison in 1964, with an additional wing built in 1975 to house members of the far-left militantRed Army Faction. At the time, it was considered one of the most secure prisons in the world.
His Majesty's Prison Service in England and Wales has had a long history in controlling prisoners that are high-risk. Prisoners are categorized into four main classifications (A, B, C, D) with A being "highly dangerous" with a high risk of escaping to category D in which inmates "can be reasonably trusted in open conditions."[12]
The British government formed the Control Review Committee in 1984 to allow for regulating long-term disruptive prisoners. The committee proposed special units (called CRC units) which were formally introduced in 1989 to control for highly-disruptive prisoners to be successfully reintegrated. Yet a series of escapes, riots, and investigations by authorities saw the units come to a close in 1998. They were replaced byClose Supervision Centres (CSC).[13] It was reported to hold 60 of the most dangerous men in the UK in 2015.HM Prison Belmarsh has a High-Security Unit that can hold up to 48 prisoners. The prisoners are those of greatest risk of escape, terrorism, radicalising other prisoners or continuing organised crime from within the prison.[14]
Alcatraz Island is a historical prototype of the supermax prison standard.
TheUnited States Penitentiary Alcatraz Island, opened in 1934, has been considered a prototype and early standard for a supermax prison.[15] A push for supermax prisons began in 1983, after two correctional officers, Merle Clutts and Robert Hoffman, were stabbed to death by inmates atFederal Penitentiary inMarion, Illinois.Norman Carlson, the director of theFederal Bureau of Prisons, argued for a new type of prison to isolate uncontrollable inmates who "show absolutely no concern for human life".[16] USP Marion became the first "supermax" prison where inmates were isolated for 23 hours in their cells. By 1999, the United States contained at least 57 supermax facilities, spread across 30–34 states.[2]
There is only one supermax prison remaining in theU.S. federal prison system,ADX Florence inFlorence, Colorado.[18] It houses numerous inmates who have a history of violent behavior in other prisons, with the goal of moving them from solitary confinement (up to 23 hours a day) to a less restrictive prison within three years.
However, many states now have created supermax prisons, either as stand-alone facilities or as secure units within lower-security prisons.[20] State supermax prisons includePelican Bay inCalifornia andTamms in Illinois. In 2006,USP Marion, the original model for the modern supermax prison, was downgraded to a medium-security prison. TheCalifornia State Prison, Corcoran (COR) is a hybrid model, incorporating a supermax partition, housing or having housed high-security prisoners such asCharles Manson.
There is no set definition of a supermax prison; however, the United States Department of Justice and the National Institute of Corrections do agree on their purpose: "these units have basically the same function: to provide long-term, segregated housing for inmates classified as the highest security risks in a state’s prison system."[21]
Building a supermax prison, or even retrofitting an existing prison, is expensive. Construction ofADX Florence cost $60 million[a] when it opened in 1994.[24]
Compared to a maximum security facility, supermax prisons cost about three times more on average.[25] The 1999 average annual cost for inmates atColorado State Penitentiary, a supermax facility, was $32,383, compared with the annual inmate cost of $18,549 at the Colorado Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison; the cost of the latter facility being just 57% of the former.[26] The increased cost is due to the technology needed to further maintain a supermax: high-security doors, fortified walls, and sophisticated electronic systems, and because more people must be hired to maintain the buildings and facilities.[26]
Most of these facilities only contain maximum or high security wings or sections, with other parts of the facility under lesser security measures. Officially, there is only one federal supermax facility in the US, others are high or maximum security.
In Brazil, the"regime disciplinar diferenciado" (differentiated disciplinary regime), known by the acronym RDD, and strongly based on the Supermax standard, was created primarily to handle inmates who are considered capable of continuing to run their crime syndicate or to order criminal actions from within the prison system, when confined in normal maximum security prisons that allow contact with other inmates. Since its inception, the following prisons were prepared for the housing of RDD inmates:
Catanduvas Federal Penitentiary (Catanduvas, Paraná,Brazil) – also based on the supermax standards. It is the first federal prison in Brazil, designed to receive prisoners deemed too dangerous to be kept in the states' prison systems (in Brazil, ordinarily, both convicts sentenced by States' courts or by the Federal Judiciary fulfill their prison terms in state-run prisons; the Federal Prison System was created to handle only the most dangerous prisoners in Brazil, such as major drug lords, convicted either by the Federal Judiciary or by the judiciary of a state).
Sassari District Prison "Giovanni Bacchiddu" atBancali, Sardinia. The only Italian prison specially designed and built as a Supermax, housing about 90 super-high security criminals all subject to the provisions of theArticle 41-bis prison regime, detained in self-contained sections, each with 4 cells, a small courtyard and a video-conference room where they can be interrogated and undergo trials without leaving the prison. This specially designed supermax has been built to replace the old maximum-security prison of theAsinara island, the so-called "Italian Alcatraz", that was closed in 2002.[34]
Another 10 Italian prisons have Supermax sections housing 41-bis inmates, besides the ordinary detention facilities, as follows:
L'Aquila District Prison – The largest Supermax section in Italy, housing over 150 inmates.[35] Contains a section for female prisoners.
Maghaberry –Lisburn, County Antrim, Northern Ireland – High Security Prison
Manchester –Strangeways, Manchester, England – High Security Prison with a special unit for prisoners suffering from Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorders.
Prison Shotts –Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland – High Security Prison. Holds some of the UK's most dangerous and violent criminals.
Wakefield –West Yorkshire, England – High Security Prison with a 'Close Supervision Centre'. It is nicknamed "The Monster Mansion" due to the many high-profile convicted murderers incarcerated there.
Whitemoor –March, Cambridgeshire, England – houses up to 500 of the most dangerous criminals in the UK. It has a unit known as the 'Close Supervision Centre' which is referred to as a "Prison inside a Prison". It has a special unit for prisoners with Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorders.
Woodhill –Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England – High Security Prison with a specialist 'Close Supervision Centre'.
^Ross, Jeffrey Ian; de Jesus Filho, José (2013). "The Rise of the Supermax in Brazil".The globalization of supermax prisons. Rutgers University Press. pp. 130–132.ISBN9780813557410.OCLC784708328.
^de Jesus Filho, José (2013). "The Rise of the Supermax in Brazil". In Ross, Jeffrey Ian (ed.).The Globalization of Supermax Prisons. Rutgers University Press. pp. 130–135.ISBN9780813557410.JSTORj.ctt5hjbxg.14.OCLC784708328.
^Ross, Jeffrey Ian; West Crew, Angela West (2013). "The Growth of the Supermax Option in Britain".The globalization of supermax prisons. Rutgers University Press. pp. 51–60.ISBN9780813557410.OCLC784708328.
^Crews, Angela West (2013). "The Growth of the Supermax Option in Britain". In Ross, Jeffrey Ian (ed.).The Globalization of Supermax Prisons. Rutgers University Press. pp. 49–66.ISBN9780813557410.JSTORj.ctt5hjbxg.9.OCLC784708328.
^Riveland, C. (1999) Supermax prisons: overview and general considerations. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections
^Grondahl, Paul (24 July 2015)."Prison escapee David Sweat severely isolated, controlled in".Times Union.In corrections parlance, Five Points is known as a "super-max." It was built 15 years ago and the modular cell units were hauled to the rural prison site two at a time on flatbed trucks and bolted together end-to-end to form a cellblock.
^Ward, Mike. "Hunt is on for escaped killer."Austin American-Statesman. 29 June 1999. A1. Retrieved on 27 November 2010. "Clifford Dwayne Jones' escape from the Estelle High-Security Unit on Sunday afternoon was the first from a Texas prison this year and the first from the "super max" lockup, as the unit is called."
